The academic program leading to a B.A. in German offers a wide range of courses to meet the diverse needs of today's student population. The undergraduate curriculum includes coursework in language, literature, linguistics, and culture. In addition, students can select courses in translation and German for business. To ensure that all students develop advanced language competency, the German program places great importance on small-sized participatory classes, which maximize opportunities to communicate in German.
Innovative teaching methods, films, multimedia, and online materials enhance classroom interaction and enrich the academic experience. In addition, excellent computer facilities and a Foreign Language Multimedia Lab provide support for our academic program.
The German major consists of a total of 44 units, including 30 units of upper-division coursework. Up to 14 units of prerequisite coursework or demonstrated language proficiency is required to begin the major.
Students may receive credit towards the lower-division requirements for the major with the appropriate scores on Advanced Placement Exams.
Upon completion of the Bachelor of Arts in German the student will:
- Demonstrate listening comprehension at the advanced level. Understand the utterances of native speakers and extract main ideas from recordings of authentic speech, including excerpts from lectures, films, radio, and television broadcasts.
- Demonstrate reading proficiency at the advanced level: Understand and summarize main ideas in target language texts intended for general readers, including social correspondences, general purpose essays, short stories, and news writing.
- Demonstrate speaking proficiency at the advanced level: Sustain a conversation on a general topic with a fluent speaker of the target language, narrate, and describe on a variety of topics at paragraph length, and respond to spontaneous developments in an exchange.
- Demonstrate writing proficiency at the advanced level: Produce narratives and descriptions, cohesive summaries, and routine social correspondences (e.g. business letters, resumes), demonstrating awareness of diction, syntax, and stylistics in the writing process.
- Demonstrate cultural knowledge: Understanding of cultural values, folk beliefs, social conventions and festive celebrations unique to target culture. Identify and characterize exemplars of painting, architecture, music, film, and other fine arts in the target culture. Identify major historical events and order them chronologically.
